October Poetry Challenge

[twelveoone]

I've been doing a little more reading on rhyme and terza rima, and one thing that I noticed that really made an impression is that this form, like so many forms, was originally invented in Italian, which is an inflected language. Inflected languages are those which use word endings to denote things like tense, case and person. English has very few inflections, compared to many other languages.

here's a link on this: http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/inflected+language

Rhyme is easier and more graceful in inflected languages because there are many more choices for rhyming words than there are in English. But that info helps us too, because we do have sets of suffixes that are used frequently, and those can offer a good mine for words that rhyme in a slightly more complex way than the cat-bat-mat variety of rhyme.

If you think about those sets of words when you're working, you come up with things like the "-ation" suffix, or "-ending" or "-ated" just as examples. Donation, creation, automation, nation, intimation. Defending, spending, comprehending. Isolated, terminated, correlated. You see what I mean.

When I started thinking that way, not only did the task of finding rhymes become much easier, it also gave the work a lot more grace. Using monosyllabic rhymes in a piece makes it hard to make it look like anything other than "I AM WRITING A POEM WHICH RHYMES" but when you move to working with rhymed suffixes, you find that lines may move naturally into one another, which is the next trick:

Don't let your brain automatically end a phrase or sentence with the end of a line. That's the only danger in the otherwise very helpful techniques that Angeline was recommending, of letting your mind noodle on the rhythm, la LA la LA la LA and so on, which is a most excellent way to start. (Read some Shakespeare first and you won't be able to write in anything BUT iambic pentameter for a while.) But when you allow yourself to work the rhyming word into the middle of the sentence the lines flow more gracefully into one another.

OOo I get to use the concept of ENJAMBMENT here. Can I be in the oval yet?

I hope that helps as everyone plays with this challenge.

bijou

Correction it was invented by Dante, and he invented Italian. I see your point, but the problem with suffixed words in English, is it starts to sound cheap and or buearocratic. Unless you use -ing, then it sounds Chinese.

 

[Angeline]

very good, perfect rhyme, love the bad word play

Thank you.

I didn't know that "meat redolent nights" could be read as "meet redolent nights" until I had finished and reread a few times. That durn tricky subconscience strikes again!

 

[champagne1982]

Faint Hope

Deception smiles this lie, bold on my face.
My lips turned into secret whispers of dark
shadows, muttered false against the mask of grace.

Tears flow down grease painted cheeks; the bark
of trees could never be so thick as this; skin
calloused from rubbing on knives that mark

and cut deep creases, where love falls in
to hide amid the blood and wounds and remain
scarred with each kind word and phony smile. I sin

self-loathing sighs of truth-tainted pain
as I hold you safe against the lies of living
here, within this loss and say I know again

and again. I know how hard it is to keep giving
voice to this hope that dies and I must bury deep.

 

[Angeline]

Faint Hope

Deception smiles this lie, bold on my face.
My lips turned into secret whispers of dark
shadows, muttered false against the mask of grace.

Tears flow down grease painted cheeks; the bark
of trees could never be so thick as this; skin
calloused from rubbing on knives that mark

and cut deep creases, where love falls in
to hide amid the blood and wounds, scarred
over each kind word and phony smile. I sin

self-loathing sighs of truth-tainted pain
as I hold you safe against the lies of living
here, within this loss and say I know again

and again. I know how hard it is to keep giving
voice to this hope that dies and I must bury deep.

Love it! The last tercept and the couplet, esoecially. It converys such a mix of pain and acceptance.

Nice to see you back,

 

[champagne1982]

Love it! The last tercept and the couplet, esoecially. It converys such a mix of pain and acceptance.

Nice to see you back,

It's nice to be back. Yours inspired me, really. I read it just before I let this one come.

I've arrived at the conclusion that my form poems can't be struggled with. If I want something unforced to result, then passion must rule. It's alright. I've been learning to accept the gift and stop devaluing my poems simply because they seem to come easily.

I love the hidden steaminess in your third:

to lift the masque, display the tender milk
of skin, the fair neck bared to Saturn’s lips,
soft and sickle curved. Others of his ilk

'S gorgeous!

 

[doctorzlo]

Wow )))

 

[Angeline]

It's nice to be back. Yours inspired me, really. I read it just before I let this one come.

I've arrived at the conclusion that my form poems can't be struggled with. If I want something unforced to result, then passion must rule. It's alright. I've been learning to accept the gift and stop devaluing my poems simply because they seem to come easily.

I love the hidden steaminess in your third: 'S gorgeous!

Thanks Champers (and doctorzlo). We've always inspired each other, I think. And you can't allow yourself to devalue your poems because they're easy to write. It doesn't work that way: good is good.

I find most forms easy to write, much easier than free verse because free verse has so, so many options, so many ways to go at your subject. Form poems limit that, so if I can get the rhythm to "sing" in my imaginstion and follow rhyme schemes I can throw them together quickly. And enjambment helps the language flow.

 

[FifthFlower]

Just wanted to praise the use of alliteration as a linking rhythm. Anyone who's read my stuff over the years could probably easily spot just how reliant upon alliteration I often am. It's one of the great underused strategies, I think.

I like your use of alliteration. In A Muse, some lines like "Musing is music" (MU-sing is MU-sic: Siever's Type A lift-dip-lift-dip half-line) seem to fit the pattern perfectly.

I find this old and middle English half-line meter hard to write (with or without alliteration or rhyme), but nice to hear.

 

[Angeline]

I've been doing a little more reading on rhyme and terza rima, and one thing that I noticed that really made an impression is that this form, like so many forms, was originally invented in Italian, which is an inflected language. Inflected languages are those which use word endings to denote things like tense, case and person. English has very few inflections, compared to many other languages.

here's a link on this: http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/inflected+language

Rhyme is easier and more graceful in inflected languages because there are many more choices for rhyming words than there are in English. But that info helps us too, because we do have sets of suffixes that are used frequently, and those can offer a good mine for words that rhyme in a slightly more complex way than the cat-bat-mat variety of rhyme.

If you think about those sets of words when you're working, you come up with things like the "-ation" suffix, or "-ending" or "-ated" just as examples. Donation, creation, automation, nation, intimation. Defending, spending, comprehending. Isolated, terminated, correlated. You see what I mean.

When I started thinking that way, not only did the task of finding rhymes become much easier, it also gave the work a lot more grace. Using monosyllabic rhymes in a piece makes it hard to make it look like anything other than "I AM WRITING A POEM WHICH RHYMES" but when you move to working with rhymed suffixes, you find that lines may move naturally into one another, which is the next trick:

Don't let your brain automatically end a phrase or sentence with the end of a line. That's the only danger in the otherwise very helpful techniques that Angeline was recommending, of letting your mind noodle on the rhythm, la LA la LA la LA and so on, which is a most excellent way to start. (Read some Shakespeare first and you won't be able to write in anything BUT iambic pentameter for a while.) But when you allow yourself to work the rhyming word into the middle of the sentence the lines flow more gracefully into one another.

OOo I get to use the concept of ENJAMBMENT here. Can I be in the oval yet?

I hope that helps as everyone plays with this challenge.

bijou

Oooh! I just said something about enjambment being the form poetry writer's best friend. Actually I've said it a bunch of times here over the years. No one ever taught me either; I just realized one day that if you flow sentences across lines you can take the stick out of the form poem's ass, er so to speak.

You can not only be in the oval you can join us in the secret oval dance, the Mashed Potatoes. It's the latest and the greatest!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Oooh! I just said something about enjambment being the form poetry writer's best friend. Actually I've said it a bunch of times here over the years. No one ever taught me either; I just realized one day that if you flow sentences across lines you can take the stick out of the form poem's ass, er so to speak.

You can not only be in the oval you can join us in the secret oval dance, the Mashed Potatoes. It's the latest and the greatest!

rockin! I notice the name of the dance is spelled correctly. that's how I know it's the oval.

bj

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Correction it was invented by Dante, and he invented Italian. I see your point, but the problem with suffixed words in English, is it starts to sound cheap and or buearocratic. Unless you use -ing, then it sounds Chinese.

I will immediately go fix the Wikipedia entry to correctly state that Dante invented Italian. Shall I just put your screen name in the bibliography for that, or do you have a more official title you'd like me to reference there? (grin smiley thingies and all that)

That's the thing- i didn't have a chance to check to see if anyone else agreed with Wikipedia that Dante invented terza rima or if he was just the first one to popularize it. I've learned not to completely trust the Wik, as handy as it has been. Certainly he was the first one to really be associated with it.

Anyway, I see what you're saying with the suffixes - there is that danger. I've had some luck with it myself, at least to get my brain out of the one-syllable word routine, but it has the same risks as any poetic method.

good luck everyone - and by the way there's some nice, nice work going on in here. Gorgeous.


bijou

 

[twelveoone]

I will immediately go fix the Wikipedia entry to correctly state that Dante invented Italian. Shall I just put your screen name in the bibliography for that, or do you have a more official title you'd like me to reference there? (grin smiley thingies and all that)

That's the thing- i didn't have a chance to check to see if anyone else agreed with Wikipedia that Dante invented terza rima or if he was just the first one to popularize it. I've learned not to completely trust the Wik, as handy as it has been. Certainly he was the first one to really be associated with it.

Anyway, I see what you're saying with the suffixes - there is that danger. I've had some luck with it myself, at least to get my brain out of the one-syllable word routine, but it has the same risks as any poetic method.

good luck everyone - and by the way there's some nice, nice work going on in here. Gorgeous.

bijou

Pope would be nice. But I think it is already there, as for Dante inventing ...one dialect often assumes precedent over the others because of the strengh of the literature, in varing lesser degrees:
same claim can be made for Cervantes and Spanish
Shakespeare and the King James group and English

Now I'm sorry I broke into your little oval, but can one of you ovalians tell why you are useing this form, or rephrase; does it support, enhance what you have written?
Or is this a crossword puzzle exercise?
Or merely a showcase for the nuevo oval?

Pardon my passing interest, but I have been reading alot about the problems of translating the Comedy.

 

[twelveoone]

Oooh! I just said something about enjambment being the form poetry writer's best friend. Actually I've said it a bunch of times here over the years. No one ever taught me either; I just realized one day that if you flow sentences across lines you can take the stick out of the form poem's ass, er so to speak.

You can not only be in the oval you can join us in the secret oval dance, the Mashed Potatoes. It's the latest and the greatest!

Interesting, I wonder what the ratio of enjambed lines to stopped lines is in Shakespeare.

 

[Angeline]

Interesting, I wonder what the ratio of enjambed lines to stopped lines is in Shakespeare.

It's done often enough to prove my point:


Shakespeare Sonnet 12

When I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white,
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:

Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Pope Heroic Couplets (Rape of the Lock, 2.101-10)

This day black omens threat the brightest fair,
That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care;
Some dire disaster, or by force or slight,
But what, or where, the Fates have wrapped in night:
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law,
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw,
Or stain her honor, or her new brocade,
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall.


Milton Blank Verse (Paradise Lost, 2.299-309)

Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat, with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin. Sage he stood
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air, while thus he spake:

Most writers, form writers included, use enjambment. And form writers use it a lot. If you read for syntactic sense you see it over and over and over.

PS You're in the oval. You've been there a few years now. It's not something you can reject out of hand because its only criterion for acceptance is love of poetry and openness to critical discussion of it.

Unless you consider the infrequent pm's I have with Eve about like what shampoos we use to be ovalesque. What shampoo do you use? Do you like it? See, now you're in that oval, too.

 

[champagne1982]

Can you be a grammar police squad member and still be an ovalian? I think m. le twelvo-onio is currently a team leader of the punctuation office.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Pope would be nice. But I think it is already there, as for Dante inventing ...one dialect often assumes precedent over the others because of the strengh of the literature, in varing lesser degrees:
same claim can be made for Cervantes and Spanish
Shakespeare and the King James group and English

Now I'm sorry I broke into your little oval, but can one of you ovalians tell why you are useing this form, or rephrase; does it support, enhance what you have written?
Or is this a crossword puzzle exercise?
Or merely a showcase for the nuevo oval?

Pardon my passing interest, but I have been reading alot about the problems of translating the Comedy.

busted. I learned the term terza rima from a crossword puzzle I was doing in the weekly world news. I suggested it so that I would look real smart and they'd let me into the oval.

I use horse shampoo. And I love it. so there ya go.


Veuillez agréer ma démission. Je ne m'inquiète pas pour n'appartenir à aucun club qui m'aura en tant que membre.

Vogliate gradire la mia rassegnazione. Non mi preoccupo per appartenere ad alcun randello che lo avrà come membro. - Groucho Marx

bijou

 

[Angeline]

Can you be a grammar police squad member and still be an ovalian? I think m. le twelvo-onio is currently a team leader of the punctuation office.

Sure. As long as he doesn't mind ovulating. That's what the nouveau oval does, I hear.

 

[sensualquills]

holy crap this is reeeaaally harder than i thought it would be.

 

[champagne1982]

holy crap this is reeeaaally harder than i thought it would be.

Silly hedgehog! It wouldn't be a challenge otherwise. If I may, you're likely letting the form dictate your thoughts. Sometimes to get away from this type of block, simply write a poem on the subject and then edit the words to fit the form. If you can come up with a nicely metered series of tercets, then you can find similies for the end words that happen to rhyme, no?

Good luck!

 

[The_Fool]

Looking for my square. No curves here.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Faint Hope

Deception smiles this lie, bold on my face.
My lips turned into secret whispers of dark
shadows, muttered false against the mask of grace.

Tears flow down grease painted cheeks; the bark
of trees could never be so thick as this; skin
calloused from rubbing on knives that mark

and cut deep creases, where love falls in
to hide amid the blood and wounds and remain
scarred with each kind word and phony smile. I sin

self-loathing sighs of truth-tainted pain
as I hold you safe against the lies of living
here, within this loss and say I know again

and again. I know how hard it is to keep giving
voice to this hope that dies and I must bury deep.

Wow. This is sooooooo good. I am impressed. You made it look a whole lot easier than it is. :::applause:::

 

[sensualquills]

oh you are divine! that is exactly what i was doing. perfect. i so see it now. thanks so much!! you really knew exactly where my block was.

*HUGS*

SQ

Silly hedgehog! It wouldn't be a challenge otherwise. If I may, you're likely letting the form dictate your thoughts. Sometimes to get away from this type of block, simply write a poem on the subject and then edit the words to fit the form. If you can come up with a nicely metered series of tercets, then you can find similies for the end words that happen to rhyme, no?

Good luck!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

oh you are divine! that is exactly what i was doing. perfect. i so see it now. thanks so much!! you really knew exactly where my block was.

*HUGS*

SQ

She IS divine. And she makes it look easy, dammit. I sweat blood over this stuff.

Keep the faith, baby! Remember, it's all just for fun anyway, just to stay limber. There are no wrong answers.

bijou

 

[champagne1982]

Pandora, thank you for your compliment. The thing is, that when I'm writing a poem to formula I can slip them out with a facility that used to make me cringe. To have the poetry come so easily makes my internal (infernal) editor doubt the quality, so that sometimes, I can't accept good words about it. But now, I think I've grown into an acceptance that just because it's not a struggle to produce, doesn't make the writing any less and again, I thank you for your praise.

I'm so glad I helped you around the big rock in the way of your poetry hedgehog lady. I try to explain some of the techniques I use so that maybe they'll work for someone else. Not everything I espouse is the brilliant groom (or bride) of someone else's muse but for those who can wear the ring, it makes me happy to see their success. On the other hand, the divorces are sad, but thankfully, they leave no children.

As for divinity? Well, Ang figures I'm a bubbly angel... Goddess is my true goal though. Move over Bacchus, I've got humanity's lil treat right here...

 

[twelveoone]

Oooh! I just said something about enjambment being the form poetry writer's best friend. Actually I've said it a bunch of times here over the years. No one ever taught me either; I just realized one day that if you flow sentences across lines you can take the stick out of the form poem's ass, er so to speak.

You can not only be in the oval you can join us in the secret oval dance, the Mashed Potatoes. It's the latest and the greatest!

Suggest a thread (again) on this, because, well it is real interesting. Not the oval part or the mashed potatoes. I don't mean to interupt the flow of the contest.

You seem to be doing something counter-intuitive.